Thoughts, opinions, and ramblings about (broadly) children's literature from my perspectives as a writer, parent, and volunteer elementary school librarian. Plus I post Fibs, Oddaptations and poetry galore, all listed on the right and left hand sides of the blog.

Friday, May 04, 2012

Cookies are not safe near me:
Temptation is my foe.
I see a cookie? Eat, eat, eat!
I try to stop... but no.
My worry for poor cookies’ health
Is very real, and so...
Since cookies are not safe near me
That’s why I ate your dough.

10 comments:

Hi Greg,I am a fan from MM Poetry with Ed. Met Ed and Allan and April at IRA in Chicago. Great to meet Ed in person! Your poem reminds me of William Carlos Williams and his plums. Yours gets to the heart of childhood. But woe is me, now we have to worry about salmonella!! How many times will they figure out ways to stomp on the fun of childhood and life? Love your site and your poetry shares of all stripes. Janet F.OOOOO maybe Ed will want to use salmonella in a poem next year. A word of caution to all poets, he will have a year to come up with these words. What fun. I am a (newly retired) teacher and looking for ways to incorporate MMpoetry in school and spread the word to more teachers. (I now volunteer and consult about using poetry as part of daily life in the classroom, I maintain its benefits are HUGE, but you must know that already.)

Ha! Fun poem, and I love these comments, too. The poor plums, and now, cookie dough. (And I hadn't thought about the fact that Ed will have so much time to figure out new words to torture, I mean, tempt, us with for MM '13.) Tanita's spot-on about Grandma's response, I'm sure... ;0)

Thanks, y'all. This poem actually has some March Madness inspiration - I believe it was the word "temptation" that appeared in round one of that fine contest... and ended up here. And yeah, I think Grandma's return note might not be as kind :-)

So, as I was reading & loving your poem, I am reminded of a time when our dog did eat the dough, really! We had no one to send a note to, just made sure the dog was outside because he became quite sick. We watched the dough carefully after that. I like the way you presented by protecting the cookies, always a good idea!

Greg -- this is great. It was even funnier the second time when I slowed down my reading and actually envisioned the kid writing out the note, leaving it on the table, and then walking out of the room without a hint of guilt.

About Me

I'm a screenwriter, volunteer librarian, dad, and SCBWI member with a love of poetry and picture books.
I'm currently working on a middle grade novel for Arthur A. Levine Books as well as writing Fibs, other poetry, and, over at The Happy Accident, all about social media, too.